#oligodendrocytes

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Refining the Mantle

Myelination– the insulation of nerve cells with a lipid-rich sheath – performed by oligodendrocytes in response to needs of developing or remodelling neural circuits is fine-tuned morphologically by calcium signalling

Read the published research article here

Video clip from work by Manasi Iyer and colleagues

Department of Neurosurgery, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in Nature Communications, September 2024

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Researchers Generate and Track Development of Myelin Producing Brain Cells

Researchers have proved that a system they developed a few years ago for culturing balls of stem-cell-derived human brain cells, which mimic aspects of real brain circuitry, can generate oligodendrocytes together with neurons and a third type of brain cell called astrocytes.

The research is in Nature Neuroscience. (full access paywall)

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Oligodendrocytes

Continuing our focus on neuroscience, we’ve got a brand new webpage on Oligodendrocytes, the cells that protect your myelin sheaths! Learn more at: www.biolegend.com/oligodendrocytes

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Coat Repair

If you go outside on a stormy day in a shoddily-made coat, you’ll get cold and. And if neurons don’t wear their own proper protective layer, malfunction and neurological diseases can result. Their sheath is made of a substance called myelin (green in the brain section pictured). This can degrade as we age, so researchers are investigating how it's produced and maintained. In mice, they studied the impact of removing Mfsd2a, a protein that transports lipids to the brain to help myelination. Removing Mfsd2a was like robbing a construction worker’s toolkit, and oligodendrocytes – the cells that produce myelin – couldn’t mature and do their job. Without Mfsd2a delivering the essential lipids, myelination decreased. Raising levels of the protein or the lipids it transports might encourage the production and repair of myelin sheaths, which could help prevent birth defects like microcephaly, or stave off conditions like Alzheimer’s disease and multiple sclerosis.

Written by Anthony Lewis

Image from work by Vetrivel Sengottuvel and colleagues

Signature Research Program in Cardiovascular and Metabolic Disorders, Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore, Singapore

Image copyright held by the original authors

Research published in Journal of Clinical Investigation, April 2023

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Untapped Potential

After disease or injury, stem cells help repair damage by replacing lost cells. Many organs have latent stem cells that lie in wait and spring into action should any trauma occur. Whether they exist in the central nervous system (CNS) was unclear. Now researchers have found such a group in mice, that develop early in the embryo and spread from the brain to the end of the spinal cord. These normally inactive stem cells leap into action when the spinal cord is injured, moving towards the damaged area, dividing and crucially creating all three main cell types of the CNS, oligodendrocytes, neurons and astrocytes (pictured). It remains to be seen whether these stem cells exist in humans. If they do, it may one day be possible to activate them therapeutically for brain and spinal cord injuries, which are particularly difficult to treat.

Written by Sophie Arthur

Image from work by Bruno Frederico and colleagues

Immunobiology Laboratory, The Francis Crick Institute, London, UK

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in Developmental Cell. August 2022

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HIV’s Cognitive Effects

Thanks to a cocktail of antiviral medications, infection with HIV is not the death sentence it once was. That said, people living with HIV often have additional health problems. One such problem is cognitive decline caused by loss of the brain’s white matter – a mix of proteins and fats called myelin, which coats and protects neurons and enables their rapid firing. Scientists have found that not only can the drugs impair myelin production, but the virus can too. HIV doesn’t infect myelin-producing cells, called oligodendrocytes (like the one at the centre of this picture), but its infection of immune cells promotes secretion of a substance that prevents oligodendrocytes from properly maturing and producing myelin proteins (coloured yellow, green and red). Resolving the details of this HIV-induced maturation block as well as the drug-induced white matter loss will hopefully inform ways to lessen or prevent the cognitive decline.

Written by Ruth Williams

Image by Raj Putatunda, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

Research by Lindsay M. Roth and colleagues, Department of Neurology, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA

Image copyright held by Raj Patatunda

Research published in Glia, May 2021

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Wrapping it Up

Just as electrical wires are surrounded by plastic insulation that allows electricity to flow smoothly and avoids short circuits, the nerves in your brain are wrapped in biological insulation known as myelin, produced by specialised cells called oligodendrocytes (highlighted green in this image of the cells in the brain of a zebrafish embryo). Curiously, the same oligodendrocyte can make different sized myelin sheaths, although it’s not known exactly how this is controlled. Myelin sheaths contain hundreds of molecular messages known as mRNA (highlighted pink), which provide instructions for making proteins – the building blocks of cells. Researchers have now discovered that these mRNAs contain a specific ‘homing signal’ that directs them to go into myelin sheaths and promote new growth. Although these experiments have been done using zebrafish, similar mechanisms are likely to be at work in our own brains, shedding light on how our nervous system is built during development.

Written by Kat Arney

Image from work by Katie M. Yergert and colleagues

Department of Pediatrics, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora, CO, USA

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in PLOS Biology, January 2021

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Go, Come Back

Just as the electrical wires in your house are insulated with a layer of plastic casing to protect them and prevent dangerous short-circuits, the electrical wiring of your body – your nerves – are encased in a protective wrapping known as myelin. This is created by specialised cells called oligodendrocytes, which wrap around the long ‘wires’ of the nerves and keep them safe. But although this insulation can reform after some types of nerve damage, it’s not known whether this happens in the complex types of damage seen in the irreversible neurodegenerative condition multiple sclerosis (MS), which happens when the immune system accidentally starts attacking the myelin coating. To find out more, researchers have been tracking how oligodendrocytes recover in a mouse brain following damage with a drug that simulates MS. By following the action in real time, they can start to test potential therapies to stop or even reverse the disease.

Written by Kat Arney

Video from work by Jennifer Orthmann-Murphy and Cody L Call, and colleagues

The Solomon Snyder Department of Neuroscience, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in eLife, May 2020

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